264: Seeing signs everywhere? Here’s why

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Hello everyone and welcome back to Canny Crystals, the podcast, with me, your host, Mart Tweedy. I hope that you're all doing all right, whatever you're up to whilst you're listening. This week, I don't know if some of you might have seen on my Instagram, I picked up my brand new wrapped car. Oh my God, I've never wanted to stick me dick in a car exhaust more than I do right now. I absolutely love it. And I even went for— so get this right, I was going to go for a private reg plate, you know, like one of them absolute knobheads that drives around. Apologies if you own one, but I really wanted CR 75 T-A-L, so it's spelled out Crystal. And I was like, oh my God, I wonder if I can buy this. £26,700. £26,700. You heard correctly. So that was a definite no-go. I wasn't paying that. I am not blowing £26,700 just so I can ride around in a car that says Crystal. And then I thought, oh, I wonder if I could get one for like Money Fest or something. So I looked at like M4FST or something like that, and none of them looked right. So I thought, right, I need some, uh, angel numbers in there. And 888 seems to be coming up for me all the time at the moment. 888 is obviously the number of abundance and infinity and eternity. And I just thought, you know what, that's a perfect number for me. I'm going to stick with that. So I went for M888 and then TWD. So it's kind of like Mart Tweedy, but it's got 888 angel numbers in it. And it was £100. £100. By the time I paid the DVLA fees and a couple of other fees on top of that, it came to about £175. It's not £26,700 though, is it? I saved myself £26,500. So yeah, I went and picked it up first thing Monday morning. I was scared to drive it home. So, so scared of like damaging it or, you know, just scuffing the wheels or anything. And then, uh, the first proper trip that I've been out was to go and visit my mum. So my mum had a little operation last week. I say a little operation, it was a freaking huge operation. She was down as a day case. She was supposed to be in there for an hour. She was told that she'd be able to come home that night. That was Friday. She didn't get home until Monday evening. The operation lasted around about 4 hours because there was a lot more inside once they'd actually opened her up. Um, basically she's been getting this swelling in the lower part of her stomach. And for about 2 or 3 years now, it's been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And a couple of years ago, she went to her GP, who referred her to, um, I think it's an oncologist. I think that's what they're called. Pardon me if I'm wrong. And they basically give her a little bit of anesthesia, like by the way of this numbing gel, and rammed a syringe into her belly button to drain this thing. A syringe into the belly button? Like, it doesn't even bear thinking about, does it? It sounds absolutely gruesome, sounds barbaric. And so, um, she had about 2.5 liters removed from this cyst, or this seroma I think it's called. And so basically they were doing loads of tests on it, and she went back to the GP a few weeks ago because she was like, this is actually causing me quite a lot of pain now, it's really uncomfortable, and my mom's weight is rapidly increasing. And we were thinking, is it all because of this thing inside of her, this growth. So anyway, she went to her doctor, they referred her for a scan, and they went, yeah, it's grown massively. It's now got about 4 liters of fluid. If we think about 4 liters of fluid, right, that's like 2 bottles of pop. You know, the 2-liter bottles of pop that we have here in the UK? So 2 of them together inside of her tummy. I find that absolutely wild. It's like more than what a baby weighs, I think, isn't it? Probably. Um, so yeah, so anyway, she went in for this operation, they put these drains in, and by the time I'd gone to visit her on the Friday night, they were like, there's no way she's going to get out before like Monday. And I was like, right, okay, so who's looking after your dog, Mum? Well, nobody, because they said it was a day case. And I'm like, right, okay. So I ended up with my mum's dog. I don't mind, he's a little Jack Russell, he's pretty much the same as our dog. But yeah, I ended up with an additional responsibility that I hadn't planned on. My mam often takes Jake, my son, on a Saturday morning after he's been to his gymnastics class, and then she brings him back on the Sunday evening. So we get a little weekend to ourself every now and again. Obviously can't do that while she is in recovery. And then on a Wednesday, she comes over, she cleans me office, she helps out with housework and stuff like that. And then on a Wednesday afternoon, I tend to usually like book that off work. so that I can do something with her and Jake, because Jake's off nursery then as well. And so we haven't got any childcare on a Wednesday there. So I was a bit stressed. I was a bit stressed. And I went into nursery on the Friday night. They must have thought I was a madwoman. I ran towards the nursery, pressed the buzzer over and over again, and I was like, I need my son, I need my son. And they're like, what's wrong? And I was like, nothing. And they said, oh, you look a bit stressed. And I was like, stressed? I was like, my mum's in hospital, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've got so much to do. Oh my God. I started crying. I started crying. And so they were all just looking at me and they were like, look, what can we do to help you? And so I said, well, really, I would love for him to be able to come to nursery just one day a week extra over the next 4 to 6 weeks until she's fully recovered. That would really help me out. I've got a lot of planning still to do with Manifest. I've got my 11:11 bundle to create. I've got my Manifest Your Best Year workshop on the 30th of December to plan. I've then got my 31 Days of Gratitude in January, and I just started reeling off my workload to this poor little woman who was just stood there like, what is he even banging on about? And so she said, do you know what, I'll get one of the staff to ring you back shortly. I hadn't even drove back to our house and I'd already got a phone call, and they were like, look, you're always giving us donations, you're always helping us out, and to be honest, he goes into nursery 3 days a week, 8 hours a day, which is 24 hours. We get 30 hours from the government. And so I was like, right, okay, so could we utilize all 30 for the next 6 weeks, say, and then we'll just pay the additional 2 hours? And they went, no, no, it's absolutely fine, we'll do it, just bring him in on Monday, that's absolutely fine, we don't want any extra money. What? A nursery that doesn't want any extra money? I'm sorry, but what kind of witchcraft is that? So anyway, um, he's been going to nursery 4 days this week and he's absolutely loving it, and he adores nursery, he really does. So he's balling. He's living the high life. Meanwhile, I've got an additional dog at home, and I'm constantly back and forth to Durham every single day, which is fun because that's a good 45 minutes each way, which is an hour and a half of me time. But then also looking after me mam. Me stepdad has COPD, and she's his main carer. Obviously, she's not able to care for him. Me nana's elderly as well, who is me mam's mum. And, um, yeah, it's just been a lot. It's been a busy, busy, busy weekend. And so on me way over to me mam's last week, I noticed that I'd seen Defenders absolutely everywhere on the A1, on the motorway. And every time I leave the house at the minute, there's another one coming towards us, whether it be parked out of the side of a shop, next to us at the traffic lights. Like apparently everyone in Newcastle had a meeting and decided you have to get a Defender. And it's the same with angel numbers on like license plates as well, like repeated ones, like repeated 8s like mine. Those combinations, like, make me look twice, and they always make us stop and be like, oh, abundance. Now, because I'm interested in manifestation, I do find that fascinating. But there's a question worth asking here, which is like, am I seeing more of them because there are more of them, or just because they mean something to us now? Because those are two different things, aren't they? You've probably experienced this yourself with something. Someone tells you a baby name that you've never ever heard of, for example, and then suddenly 3 people have called the child it. Happened to me the other day. One of my friends mentioned to me that she was thinking of calling her little boy this particular name. I went into the gym, all of a sudden I'm paired up with a guy with the same name. So, you might even learn a new word and then you'll hear it 2 or 3 times that week, or you'll start thinking about a particular car like mine, and apparently the roads are full of them. Now, there's a name for this. It's called the frequency illusion. It's something that comes to your attention and then it starts feeling much more common than it did before. So there are 2 things here that help explain it. So one is selective attention, which means that certain things stand out while others pass unnoticed. And we know this from using our RAS. And the second is confirmation bias, which means that you're more likely to register and remember the examples that support what you already suspect. So in my case, it's always, there's another bloody Defender on the road. Now, the important bit is that the cars are real. They're not like imaginary. I haven't just imagined them and made them up in me head. But seeing more of them doesn't by itself tell me that there are suddenly more on the road. All it means is that my attention has changed. So before I cared about these cars, one could have driven past us and I might barely have even registered it. But now I recognize the shape, I notice the color, and I have a look at which version it is. So it's become relevant to us, so it gets me attention. And with number plates as well, I'm remembering the ones that mean something to us. So I'm hardly coming home saying, you'll never guess what I saw today— a completely unremarkable combination of letters and numbers. Nobody's getting the journal out for that, are they? But repeated 1s or 8s, those stand out, don't they? And once I'm thinking, oh my God, I keep seeing these, the next one feels like further confirmation. Now, that doesn't make me stupid or gullible. It means that I need to understand that what catches me attention Isn't a complete recording of every single thing going on around us. So there's a famous attention experiment where people watched a video and they counted basketball passes. But while they were concentrating, someone in a gorilla suit walked through the scene, and many viewers missed the gorilla entirely because they were so focused on the basketball. They were looking at the screen, they just weren't attending to that part of it. And researchers call this the inattentional blindness. Because we can miss something quite obvious when our attention is occupied elsewhere. And I think that's quite humbling really, because we like to think that we know what's happening around us 24/7, don't we? And apparently someone can walk through dressed as a gorilla while we're busy counting and nobody notices it. So when I've been noticing all these Defenders, all these cars, the interesting question for me was, well, what else has been there that I haven't been registering? And that's where this connects to manifestation for me, because I literally turned me car radio off. I sat in silence all the way to me mam's on that 45-minute journey, and I just sat thinking about this. Because when you get clear about something that you want, you obviously then give yourself something specific to look out for, don't you? So say you want to change your jobs. I hate me job. That tells you how you feel, but it doesn't tell you how much about what to notice next. But if you were to say something along the lines of, I want a role where I can use these skills, work these hours, and have less traveling, that gives you something to work with. Now, when someone mentions a vacancy or a company, you've got a reason to pay attention because you can recognize whether it might fit. So, the vacancy still needs to exist, and it'll still exist to everyone else out there, and you still need to find out about it and apply and see what happens. But clarity can help you spot something that you might otherwise have scrolled past. Now that's useful. There's something that you can actually do with that information. And it makes me think that we sometimes spend so much time asking the universe for signs that we overlook information around us. So someone mentions a course relevant to what you do, or a friend knows someone who works in the field that you're interested in, and then an application opens. And then we're still asking, universe, should I take this next step? Well, you could at least read the bloody job application and job description, couldn't you? You don't need to commit your entire future. You need to find out what's involved. Now, I know with you lot listening to this, there will be some people out there hearing the explanation about attention that I've just spoke about and think, so are you saying angel numbers mean nothing, Mart? No, I'm just saying that we need to be clear about what we mean When we say, oh my God, that means something. Yeah, so seeing repeated ones, that can feel really meaningful to us. It might remind us of an intention or make us pause or even prompt us to notice what I was thinking about in that moment, and I can enjoy that moment. But if I see 111 on a number plate, that doesn't establish that a particular thing is about to happen and, you know, £50,000 about to drop from the sky. The sighting and my interpretation, that's They are 2 separate things. And that's where I think we can give ourselves a bit more freedom in life, because we can have a spiritual interpretation without pretending that we've proved it. So I can say, oh, thank you for that. That felt like a lovely little reminder, without needing to announce that someone's Vauxhall has delivered a legally binding message about my future and that I'm going to be a millionaire. And I think the useful question here is, what does this moment encourage me to then do? So if seeing a number reminds you to return to something important, lovely, go for it. Maybe you've been meaning to contact someone or finish a job application or make time for a practice that you enjoy. But if you are using numbers like angel numbers to keep waiting for someone who has consistently shown you that they are not interested, then you need to include their behavior into the conversation. So here is something practical that you can try. I want you to pick one thing that you would like to move towards in the next Let's say 2 weeks. And I say just one so this doesn't become a complete audit of your life before you finish your tea. And then I want you to ask, what would a relevant opportunity actually look like? So if you want more friendship, maybe it's an invitation to go out or a local group or someone you already know, maybe just even asking you to go out for a coffee. If you want to learn something, it could be a class that you can realistically attend. If you want a different job, decide which of those features matter. Hours, location, responsibilities, pay. Give yourself something more specific to think about. And then over the next 2 weeks, just pay attention to those things. And when you notice one, take a proportionate step. So, ask a question, read the details, reply to the invitation, find out the costs involved. You're gathering information that's far more useful than trying to decide whether every opportunity is your destiny. Because some things won't suit you once you look into them properly, and that's fine. Noticing something doesn't oblige you to go after it. And keep track of the whole picture as well, because if you're noticing repeated numbers, remember that plenty of ordinary plates pass you as well. So if you're spotting opportunities, Record what happened when you followed them up. Yeah, that gives you something to reflect on beyond the feeling that everything is suddenly everywhere. And the reason that I'm talking about this is that I've had— oh, I'm just having a look now. I've had roughly 30 messages, I would say, in the last week. I'm gonna take a wild guess at 30 there. There's a lot of scrolling. I've had around 30 messages in the last week from people Saying, I've just seen 111. What does this mean? And don't get us wrong, like, I know exactly why they asked, because if you go online and you look it up, there are about 45 bloody million different answers, isn't there? There's new beginnings, alignment, your manifestations coming, and by the time you finish Googling, you're expecting a new job, a soulmate, a check by Thursday. But within angel number interpretations, 111 is often associated with new beginnings and intentions. But I can't tell somebody exactly what a number means for their life from the fact that they've just seen it. I'd actually be more interested in asking, what made you notice it? What were you thinking about when you saw it? Does it connect to something that's already been on your mind? Because then that gives us something personal to explore rather than me handing out the same prediction to everyone who checks the time at 11 minutes past 11. Spoiler alert, I've even got it tattooed on me ankle. So does that mean that every single time my partner sees it, that something's going to happen, or that he's in alignment? No, absolutely not. If you like working with angel numbers, you could use 111 as a reminder to pause and check in with yourself. Maybe you've been thinking about starting something, and seeing it prompts you to take the next practical step. You can enjoy that sense of encouragement without needing the number to guarantee the outcome. Can you see what I'm saying there? And if you weren't thinking about anything in particular, you don't have to manufacture this huge profound explanation about it. You're allowed to just spot it, notice it, smile, and get on with your day. So what I'm kind of taking from this is that for me, seeing Defenders everywhere is a very ordinary reminder that something can become much more visible once it starts mattering to you. That's literally it. I'm going to enjoy spotting them. I'll still notice the angel number plates as well, but I also want to use that experience to ask myself, have I made what I want clear enough to recognize a useful next step? Because I can spend a week counting repeated 8s and still avoid doing the thing that I already know needs doing. And that's the part I have some influence over. So this next week, I want you to choose something that you want to notice more carefully, and then I want you to decide What would be relevant? I want you to keep your eyes open and follow up on what you find. And give yourself something specific to look for as well. If you've decided that you want more connection, like, what would that actually look like? Would it be someone at work who always asks how your weekend was? It could be a friend who suggested meeting up a few times, but you've never actually set a date in your diary. Or a class that you keep on thinking that you'd enjoy. Because you might be waiting for a completely new person to enter your life, but overlooking somebody who is already trying to get to know you. You're picturing how friendship's supposed to arrive, and an ordinary invitation for coffee doesn't look exciting enough to register with you. Now that's worth thinking about, and it was something that I thought about, because how many things have we dismissed because they didn't arrive looking the exact way that we expected? I've missed so many bloody opportunities, especially in the last 12 months, I'm going to say, from things arriving not how I expected them to arrive. For example, in December last year, I said to myself that I wanted more speaking gigs. Guess what? I got contacted by a company that I'd never heard of before, wanting me to do a speaking slot. And I had no idea who this company was, never heard of it before in my life. And they contacted me and they said, there's a speaking slot available at our festival. We'd love to have you there, love to get you involved. I looked at where it was, right, and it was somewhere called Silverstone. And I Googled Silverstone and I realized it was a racing track. So immediately the brick wall came up and I got my defenses up and I was like, why would I want to go and speak at an F1 racing track? And all that was going through my mind is it's going to be filled with loads of straight men, it's going to be filled with men that are closed-minded and they don't understand what I do. Yeah, and it just wasn't a great vibe for me, so I declined. And then guess what? A few months pass by, and all of a sudden Kirstie Gallagher says that she is attending Car Fest this year. And I'm like, what? She's going to speak in front of like loads of straight men, boozed up, watching F1? I didn't understand it. It's a wellness festival. It's a wellness festival, and I'd said no to it. And it's a huge wellness festival. Some of my members even went to it this year. I was so disappointed. But that arrived to me in a different guise, and I didn't understand what I was saying no to because I had no information. I just saw where it was at, who I assumed it was going to be for, and then straight away I got my guard up and I said no. It was headlined, I think, by Jessie J, Tom Jones, Olly Murs, the Sugababes, I was like, are you kidding me? Are you actually kidding me? So yeah, I remember going back to them like with my tail between my legs basically and saying, look, I'm really, really sorry, I didn't realize what this was, but now I see. Please, can I be on the lineup? They never responded. I missed that opportunity in its entirety. Now obviously I'm not saying that you have to accept every single invitation or Go after everything that comes your way. But sometimes we ask for a change and then we reject the perfectly ordinary steps through which that change could happen. So for you, it could involve going somewhere, or asking a question, or just being a beginner. It might feel a bit awkward before it feels promising, and that's something that a number plate can't do for you, isn't it? It can catch your attention, of course. It can feel encouraging, Like seeing those angel numbers or whatever, but eventually you've got to decide whether you're going to reply to the message or book the class. And there's another side of this as well, like, because once you understand that you're more likely to notice something that's become important to you, you can start questioning some of the conclusions that you've been drawing. So say, for example, you've decided that nobody ever bothers with you. If someone forgets to reply, that lands straight away, doesn't it? There it is, more evidence nobody wants to ever bother with me. But what happens when someone does check in? Do you register it properly, or do you dismiss it because they're just being polite? If you count every disappointment and explain away every bit of kindness, you're ultimately making it very hard and difficult for your opinion to change. Now, that doesn't mean that every situation is secretly wonderful, because sometimes people really aren't making an effort, and you're allowed to recognize that. I'm talking here about giving yourself a fair account of what's happening, including all the things that don't fit the story that you've got used to telling yourself. So maybe someone did offer to help. Maybe a conversation went better than expected. Maybe you handled something that you thought that you couldn't handle. All of those things deserve to be included when you're deciding what your life's like and what you're capable of. Because you can be quite harsh with the evidence that you accept about yourself. For me, having one awkward conversation, suddenly me brain goes to, oh my God, I'm terrible with people. Or one thing goes wrong and it's like, oh, I always mess up. But meanwhile, the 15 things that you managed that day apparently don't qualify for consideration. So yeah, anyway, that's what I'm taking from seeing Defenders everywhere. Me interest has made them stand out. And now I'm aware of just how often my attention goes towards them. So it's made us more curious about what else I'm giving that level of attention to and whether it's actually useful. Because we all want to manifest things, don't we? So we need to put our attention in the right place in life. So I'll notice a repeated number instantly, but will I notice that I've been putting the same thing off for 3 weeks? Or will I notice when I'm getting this huge speaking opportunity to speak at a friggin festival that I say no to? Yeah, there are messages in our ordinary lives that are quite clear already, even without deciding whether they've come from the universe. So enjoy your angel numbers. I certainly will. Let them make you smile. Let them prompt a moment of reflection. But then come back to the thing that you can actually do. So if seeing 111 reminds you of a new beginning, what would beginning look like today? It could be 10 minutes finding some information out. It could be one honest conversation. Just give that feeling somewhere to go. And if there's no big revelation, that's fine as well. You haven't missed your spiritual delivery slot. You can carry on with your day and make a good decision without a personalized registration plate arriving to confirm it. Okay, that's all I'm going to say on the matter. And just before I go, I just want to quickly mention about our crystal advent calendars. We've got 2 different advent calendars this year on the website, cannycrystals.co.uk. We have a 12-day advent calendar which is specifically carvings. So there's a little leaf in there, there's a little Christmas tree, there's a snowflake, there's a heart, there's a moon. It's really pretty. And then we've also got a 24-day advent calendar, which is filled with 24 little tumblestones as well. So that's really cute as well. So head on over to the website, cannycrystals.co.uk, enter the discount code, which is the word PODCAST, all in capital letters. You'll get your little exclusive discount code off there as well. Make sure that you do that. Sooner rather than later, because they are flying out this week. As I record this, it's Tuesday. By the time Friday comes out, there might not even be any left. But go and have a check for yourself, cannycrystals.co.uk. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to leave me a rating, a review, subscribe, follow, whatever it is that you can do. It's all free for you to do, so it'll take you no longer than 10 to 15 seconds, but it really does help me in ways that you can't even begin to imagine. So thank you all so much for listening, and I will see you all next Friday for another episode. Have an incredible week ahead, and I'll see you all next time. Bye!

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